The ToI claims two tourists from Morocco and the UAE were deported for making out in Mumbai. What say we pass the hat so the thin khaki line gets laid once in awhile?
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Slapping hussies in Meerut |
Ibtisay Lamyani, 27, and Alfasar Nasir Abdul Hussain Ali, 37, were visiting India separately and had met at the Gateway of India. They were necking near the Metro cinema junction on Tuesday afternoon when a woman constable from Azad Maidan police station decided to intervene. She warned them against indecent behaviour in a public place. [Link]
The ToI’s smug commentary mirrors the sourpuss constable:
When they argued back, she demanded they show their passports. As luck would have it Lamyani’s visa had expired… Not chastened in the least, they promptly got into a clinch again. [Link]
The female tourist saw the director’s cut of Bombay (now with behind-the-bars footage), and both tourists were deported:
The police then submitted a chargesheet to the court which convicted Lamyani to a day’s imprisonment… Ali was also fined. They were both deported to their respective countries on the same night. [Link]
India Welcomes You.
Related posts: Bitter much?, Do Not Touch!, No sex please, we’re Indian, There is no place to hide it in India, Sex (gasp) in India: juxtaposition, Those legs are weapons of mass distraction, apparently, Indian Maxim is out to save lives, Dress Code
What is more important is that it was written by the British in 1860.
From the link provided by Najeeb:
Najeeb – Okay, I’ll try this one more time. The Brits did not influence Indians to stop kissing in public. Indian tradition dictated that anyway. My point is that they made a law such as this. This should not be a legal matter. Period. Similarly, there should not be nudity laws as there are in the West. People will wear clothes anyway. However, if someone wants to protest in the nude they should not have the book thrown at them.
I’m begining to get the impression that people don’t really have a defense for why such laws should exist and for their lack of a case are simply turning around and accusing me of blaming Indian traditions on the British. I think it’s time to close comments on this or in any case I’m going to treat them as closed. One can only restate a point in so many ways.
yes, that was originally brought to my attention by Kush. if a girl walks around topless in San Francisco(ok, except during bay to breakers) the police might detain you – my point is that such laws exist even in most liberal democracies. – what makes a real difference is the interpretation of it. in india, ‘obscene’ is interpreted as ‘no kissing’ and in the U.S it is being ‘topless’ for a woman. Big difference.
While it is true that this was written originally by the British, the definition of what is obscene has changed in a century and it is the indian legal system that continues to interpret kissing in public (in this case atleast) as obscene. So quit blaming the British.
Besides which, who the heck is asking India to keep the code on the books?
I have a feeling that “morality” cycles. The West is generally in a libertarian love phase, where all is permissible as per the conscience of the individual. India is in a very conservative phase. The West may become more conservative in the near future and reassert its patriarchy in the face of its demographic decline. India may do just the opposite, as consumer capitalism gives individuals a way out of the joint family system. “Cultures” ain’t set in stone as razib has made clear on several occasions.
Divya, I am not sure why such laws exist either – i am not a supporter of such laws. but in places like india, traditions have always become as good as laws and if you break the tradition, you are an outcast. in all practical terms, it is as good as jail time. so i don’t think the rules enforced by tradition are any better than the ones enforced by law.
Sunday has been busy on SM..
One point that you guys have missed.
About 10 days before this incident, 26 year old Abhishek Kasliwal was arrested for allegedly raping a 52 year old in his car at Sriram Mills in Worli, Mumbai.
Couples in public places have always been soft targets for the Indian Police.
Now, the Mumbai Police had to show that they were DOING something to make the city safe again. At the very least they had to deflect some media heat off this case.
A similar rationale was probably used by the cops involved in Operation Romeo in Meerut.
The Brits and Mughals no longer rule India… Sides which argue for the Kama Sutra theory or those which argue for the Conservative India theory are both being irrelevant. Try and concentrate on present day India which has a very unique hotch-potch of societal and moral blends. So many people have their own opinion of what is ‘Indian’ and what is not. Why won’t people realize that culture cannot be engraved in stone and kept as-is… exchange of opinions and ideas should redefine the society from time to time.
If the couples cuddling out there on Bandra Band Stand, Mumbai had more affordable, private places to go to.. If there were more forms of entertainment that couples in India could go to… they wouldn’t really be sitting in front of 100 strangers. That is what’s sad…
Take it from someone who’s been there and done that..
This is an acceptable point of debate. In my opinion they are.
Ennis, India has innumberable laws that require changing. They will not prioritize this particular one. Besides, there’s money to be made off of such laws. Besides, Indian society has changed. Indian society now accepts normative rules for social behavior. Otherwise, India did not have a moral “ought”. Even if tradition was forcefully binding it differed in various parts of the country. If India were to rewrite the kissing laws now, it probably would add a couple more clauses of its own. Maybe we’re better off the way it is.
The topless law was successfully challenged in Canada some time ago, women can go topless here. Most don’t of course. But the choice exists. (This may be restricted to some provinces – dunno)
Divya – please explain why people who bring up conservatism in the Hindu tradition (Manu being the most handy example) to keep others from jumping all over those ‘bad whiteys’ and ‘bad Muslims’ are collaborationists? Good God, woman! Have we been transported to Vichy France? Are the fascists coming?
Lastly, to my admirers: ‘Queen’ has more than one connotation in the West.
(#132)
Cogito you got me thinking about how it was in HS/college here in the States. The cops give everyone a “hard time”(pardon the pun) not just in conservative India. And they might not slap you but hell if they don’t make you pull out your ID, and depending on your age (and your partner’s age), how far “into the moment” they caught you, and where you live threaten to call your parents or find an excuse to give you a ticket (no parking, past curfew, missing socks…)
How many SMers out there can recall being interrupted by the Law rapping on the fogged up windows of daddy’s Toyota Camry, or the frustrated commotion caused in the back rows of empty theatres, or that time on the beach near LSD, or the pool table at the frat house, or that embarrased family of hikers in the forest preserve, or…
(damn, i’ll be back in 10-12 minutes)
Dharma Queen, While I’ve been enjoying reading your comments, the problem with bringing up Manu, specifically, is that it’s a moot point and serves no purpose. Manu was championed by the British as representative of normative “Hindu” values – sorry, but that’s outdated Orientalist scholarship. The Laws of Manu were perhaps even more obscure and peculiar in “ancient India” than they are now.
In present day India it’s not “laws” vs. “tradition” that’s the problem. “Tradition”, whatever that means, has largely been buried under a culture of hypocricy when it comes to sexuality. There are all kinds of anti-obscenity laws in various US states for exammple (You shall not kiss your wife on the northern side of the street on a Sunday) that no one bothers to consult or implement because they are so culturally outmoded. And no, I’m not valorizing the States (gah) I’m just using it as an example. So the problem here isn’t the law books or what the essence of Indian tradition is – it’s one where a mixture of harassment and paternalism still seems to reign free in the streets with a simultaneous scramble to push for maximum exposure and skin in pop culture. You can get deported for kissing, but strangely, you still get groped, prodded and hollered at trying to get through town with charming frequency. Repression, much? And I’m not being disdainful of Indian crowds either – but show me one woman on this forum who hasn’t felt violated at some point in the cities. And it’s hard to sympathise with “morality” when there’s billboards with some sweaty starlet in nothing more than a bikini wax and a tube top petulently staring at you from the side of the building while couples in parks get busted for locking lips. I’m having a very hard time wanting to defend “Indian culture” on this one.
i think sexuality is something which with most societies have a schizophrenic relationship. in the u.s., you can have graphic sex and language in movies or on tv, and graphic depictions of plastic surgery and breast augmentations, but the nipple will be blurred out. then there was that big brouhaha over Janet Jackson’s nipple and attitudes towards women breastfeeding in public, something that is a common sight in many developing countries. a national geographic cover featuring a topless tribal woman in a developing country can be featured in the main magazine section but a topless western woman on the cover would be placed in the adult magazine section. in italy, a clothing ad featuring clothed models – with only one barebacked guy — recreating da vinci’s last supper scene (itself an interpretation of a biblical scene and not directly from the bible) was banned by the courts because it would offend sensibilities. yet in italy there is a high quotient of porn and scantily clad women on tv that is not banned. in the uk you have topless women in newspapers but they initially banned an australian tourism advert featuring the words “bloody hell.”
brownfrown – I agree about the hypocrisy in Indian culture. But I wonder if it is always that. There’s an element of cluelessness in it. There we’ll be sitting cozily in the drawing room with assorted members of the family only to have the TV begin to ooze soft porn. And everybody acts like it’s perfectly normal! That’s the part I don’t get. I know my family and neighbors well enough to know it’s not because they are hypocrites although I’m yet to figure out what to call it. Why is there such a disconnect between how they personally behave and what they watch on TV (with 8-year-olds and 80-year-olds present in the same room)?
“Why is there such a disconnect between how they personally behave and what they watch on TV (with 8-year-olds and 80-year-olds present in the same room)?”
there’s a goodness gracious me skit about that where the family is watching tv and eating. whenever an uncomfortable sex scene comes on, they immediately start talking really loudly, all together, to drown out the tv noise. very funny.
physically harassing and deporting someone for kissing is wrong and abusive, but i wonder how many people here, say while on a trip to visit relatives in india, would engage in a full-on liplock or necking session with their significant (or insignificant) other in front of their own elderly or other relatives at a crowded tourist hotspot?
I wouldn’t engage in a liplock in front of elderly relatives, though I’ve had my arm around my boyfriend in front of them, held hands etc. I wouldn’t ‘neck’ in front of my Western friends here – call me a prude. Actually, I can’t tell my elderly relatives that I’ve broken up with my last boyfriend, who came to India with me, as they expected us to get married. My sweet old great uncle would probably have a heart attack. But I think this sort of concealment is stupid. Why do we ABCDs always have to conform to Indian expectations, and not the reverse???
well, i’m not an abcd. i think everyone has their own comfort level, even in western society, although they are more “open” about it. i don’t think its always about concealment, otherwise why would you not neck in front of your western friends to whom, i assume, it would be more “normal” behavior than in most of indian society. and from many of the comments i’ve read here, i do think abcds expect indians from india to conform to certain behaviors and modes of dressing etc. here as well, so it’s a two-way street.
with changing mores in india (some good, some not so good), maybe the “moral police” will learn to handle the situation more sensibly whilst still respecting prevalent indian sensibilities. i once holidayed in an islamic part of kenya. the unspoken rule there is to dress modestly – at least a t-shirt and long skirt or pants for women or some other form of traditional modest clothing. however, one american woman decided to parade along the small main street in her bikini top, offending the residents. they were nice people and although it upset them they didn’t kick her out or anything. but she could have put on a t-shirt. i’m not sure what point she was trying to prove. no doubt, if one dug deeper, one would find hypocrisies in that small kenyan town, but as tourists the rest of us decided to respect our host’s sensibilities.
Whose God,
I hear you about the American woman. I’ve seen American women behave similarly in India, and it is ridiculous. But when it comes to a simple kiss (not a liplock), or being upfront about important decisions in one’s life (ie breaking up with a boyfriend), or wearing an open-necked shirt (not a bikini top), or wearing jeans, or smoking a cigarette, or having a glass of wine – NONE of which should be blatantly offensive to any sensible being in the world, ABCDs, especially females, get royally screwed.
uberwench, i don’t disagree with you about the hypocrisies of having to hide certain simple innocuous things and life decisions from your own family (especially women), much less society at large. as far as jeans and open necked shirts go, i don’t see why anyone in urban india would object, unless they come from a very conservative family, or they find the jeans too tight and the shirt too revealing. again, it varies from family to family. for mine, jeans and and open necked shirt would not be a big deal, but smoking and drinking in their house would be and (although i don’t smoke) i would never do it in their house as a guest unless they okayed it.
i do have one small quibble about smoking though:) it is offensive to those around the smoker, because second-hand smoke can cause cancer.
I want to take the quiz from post 22! I know im late to the game but I have things to do.
1) I’d probably rather be in Delhi, especially if my girlfriend was hispanic, black, or white. I think I’ve seen the situation you’ve described in a Hindi movie though.
2)I think I’d be fine with either. When I was in India two months ago, my sisters and two female cousins used to go watch movies, and get back later than 730, with no problem.
3)No
4)hahaha thats a joke! Hmm I’m having trouble thinking of a time when American cops were not disciplined, maybe I saw something about it on the news one time.
one question off topic: am i right in assuming that prolific posters during weekday working hours are largely grad students? 🙂 if not, plz plz tell me where you work… gotta go now. flight to catch. while i will argue with you all, i will be remarkably meek and mild when it comes to homeland security.
I have a strange feeling that was directed toward me byte. The answer is undergrad student. The lowest of the low on the Sepia Mutiny food chain!
Kums,
Yeah only an undergrad would think he could take a black girlfriend to Delhi and have an easier time than in, say, NY. As for the American boondocks…well, there we all look the same anyway.
Kums:
You are by NO means the lowest of the low here on SM…
sigh if only it were possible for us to trade shoes for a weekend (or spring break weekend to be exact)
back to the grease-pits
wow, the eyes hurt just to read ALL those comments on such a issue.
i am wondering though, the video makesmy comp. crash, so i havent seen it, and amd am wondering, were those tourists deshi looking, meaning, i know they were arabs, but did they look blond blue eyed arab, or did they look brown arab?
because, would they have been treated the same, if they were lets say, a redheaded swede and a blond russian?
it has been amazing the comments come out of the woodwork of people’s psychy, u really get a sense of whose who based on the comments they make on particular issue. if one were a behaviour scientist this sort of thing would be fascinating. ahrm, ahrm, not that one is ofcourse. um.. ahrm.
and as always, i cannot get over the overgenralisation individuals make about others based on a few statements, or perhaps, a few lines typed in haste/anger/angst. i wonder if they act like this in real life, or this being on the interwebs, if its ok for them to act in a manner they wouldnt otherwise. hmm, makes u think doesnt it, if those tourists were doing just that, as it was not there country.
=)
PS: believe it or not, it is possible to be south asian living inthe west without being a abcd or a fob (or fop).
Anyone can have an easy enuf time in delhi (or any metro) with a girlfriend/ boyfriend; just need to move around in the right places depending on where you are – in delhi its where rich teenage kids hangout – malls, cineplexes, clubs etc. If you have the uncontrollable urge to make out in public, however, i cant help you ;-).
Growin up in big cities in india, most people pretty much get used to all this. Even in the most conservative metropolis Chennai, there are lots of areas of beaches and parks where couples of make out (and more) all the time (mostly because they do not have private places to go). As long as you are not in-your-face flaunting it, most people dont care. OF course near the month end, there will be an occassional policeman trying to make up for his low wages…. or once in a while a politically motivated crackdown on “public indecency”. Youngsters take it all in their stride and neither have the time nor enough outrage to take on the system.
“PS: believe it or not, it is possible to be south asian living inthe west without being a abcd or a fob (or fop).”
hooray!
“because, would they have been treated the same, if they were lets say, a redheaded swede and a blond russian?”
i believe so. there was that kerfuffle over the israeli couple who unwittingly kissed after being married in a traditional hindu ceremony in rajasthan (much more conservative than Mumbai) and that finnish woman who decided to go for a nude stroll through rajashthan. i don’t think they were deported though (i’m assuming the arabs were deported for visa violations and not for the kissing per se) but admonished.
i’m with you brownfrown, its the hypocrisy that gets it. it seems like it would take a lot of the fun out of it to have to deal with people who can’t openly be comfortable with their own desires. it seems like one thing to have some kind of reasonable expectation of how to go about expressing desire — i think in the US sometimes things become too debached and debased. but i think some times the indian mentality takes it too far to the other side, to the point the contradication is embarrassing. its tough to watch some of those desi music videos and square that with the messages being thrown. it also seems like in these schemes its the woman who has to be responsible for the sexual virtue of society, which is bogus. its probably a bad idea to be that hypocritical
“but i think you need to cut him some slack, and not just because we’re friends, his heart isn’t in the evil place some of you ascribe to it.”
Razib,come on, nobody hates Manish. In fact I think most girls have a crush on him (or his writing,same thing). I do wish though that he would stop continually pitting the readers into two camps – the “We are most sophisticated than you” AKA the SouthAsian-Americans vs the “We are more authentic than you” AKA motherland folks , with several more straddling the fence.
back in a new place. no kums, that comment was not targetted at anyone. i am in a univ, and i know the “joblessness” associated with being in academics. that is why i asked. besides i had no intention of getting deep into the manu vs macaulay fights, so i posted an off topic comments :). why pit two dead people against each other that too when neither one knew of the other?
There is an unquestioned assumption that “repression” is the cause for the “harrasment” of the couple by the Police woman. What do you mean? Would the woman constable not have warned the Arab couple of indecent behavior if she were having proper sex? It reminds me of an American girl who claimed that “she saw homosexuals wherever she went in India” because she saw men putting their arms around other men. Her reasoning for this “out of control homosexuality” was the “sexually repressed” society. “Sexual repression in India” is like “Bush in the U.S.” ; he/it gets blamed for everything. What does the sex life or lack of it of the police woman have to do with her being a police woman?
Divya makes a good point: the aversion to kissing in public is not because it is the law, but because people think it is improper. In other words, if today you were to take a representative sample of indian paopulation, and ask them if “people should be allowed to kiss in public”, I claim that, overwhelmingly, the answer would be a “no”.
Do most people on this board, think the answer would be an “yes”, and hence see it as some kind of oppression? Why do people think people are defensive about India, if we question your assumptions? You must give our comments a honest thought before dismissing them as ‘defensive’.
Most of the people on this board, probably have parents who grew up in the sub-continent. Do you think they would approve of the people kissing in public? Would they be comfortable doing it? I know…I know, they are a different generation and all…but, I want to illustrate the point that your are not exactly alien to the idea of sexual conservativeness. You know someone close to you who holds ideas that are antithetical to yours. Please give it an honest hearing.
People will try to create socities that reflect the values they share, and as the values change, the laws will change sooner or later. The woman constable is not some external entity; she is part of the society, enforcing the prevailing norms of the society.
I am not talking about the harsh behavior of the Police towards offenders. I am only saying that it is prudent for police to arrest couples who kiss in public. It’s law of the land. You want a society where it is not a crime to kiss in public. I want it otherwise. NAMBLA wants a society where it is OK to have sex with boys; the anti-abortionists want to make abortion illegal. One side of the issue recieves the favor of the law; the other side does not.
You must realize that equally intelligent or equally dumb people argue on both sides of all issues, and have respect for how a society comes to create norms of what is acceptable. Its one thing to say that “you wish the law were different” or that “you wish people felt differently about kissing in India”, but its a whole another thing to imply things like “the police enforce laws because they are sexually repressed”, which is what I feel you are implying.
You will probably say, “take it easy dude..I am joking”, but it’s funny to you and offensive to me. I am sure a lot of prejudice passes under jokes. I am not saying there is any malice, just unexamined bias that you probably are not critical about.
A Question – Isn’t it in Manish’s et al’s interest [$$$$$] to pit one camp against the other? After all the more tabloid style controversey they generate the more hits they garner, the more hits on SM translates into more advertising $$$$ down the line.. Sad but expected. After all it is the Yankee way.
Thank you, whocares, for playing into our diabolical plan. Shh, don’t tell anyone… just keep posting tabloid-style controversey [sic].
I was going to post this under Humor, now I see my original impulse was correct 🙂
Manish – You do have a vested interest in increasing the traffic to your blog. After all you do put in sweat equity and only fair that you are compensated.
Yep, and I thank you for increasing the value of our stock. After your last comment, we’ve scraped together enough funds for a Gulfstream IV. Keep on stirrin’!
I think you’ve doubled our advertising revenues with this post alone!
But where are the ads !!
Hello? Abhi’s face in the bottom right corner of the front page? This man-meat is priced to move!
“Hello? Abhi’s face in the bottom right corner of the front page? This man-meat is priced to move!”
Ah! Hope that pays well!
Regards
I did say “advertising down the line” Build it and they will come, gentlemen. And come they will, the ads that is.
Aslam, well, wonders never cease, another voice of reason. u must be one of those who either grew up here, moved here, or live somewhere in south asia. i have learned here that apparently those are the only deshis who exist.
and thank you, seriously, admin for offering up these discussions. a comment count of almost 200 has to say something about what peoples like to
arguediscuss vs. a comment count of 10.seriously, makes a nice change from
arguingdebating a bunch of westeners.7:30 PM in Bombay ??? I think you confused Bombay with some other city. 7:30 is way way too early for any cop to come and approach you. 3:00 AM would be more like it in some deserted lane if you are talking about Bombay, but even then unless you are drunk and making some kind of a scene, it is highly unlikely that cops will come and start hassling you in Bombay. And almost all the time you can just bribe your way out of the situation. Bombay by far is the safest city for women. I used to regularly commute at 1:30 AM on the local trains and you can see that the ladies compartments were still crowded (ofcourse now they are manned by constables). On weekends the beaches are crowded even all through the night. I have had lip smacking cheese pav bhaji and dahi batata puri at 2:30 AM on juhu beach and it was crowded with families, kids, mini ferris wheels and all.
dont give up now…just 9 more after this comment makes it 200!